The Glasbury Farm poltergeist, Trimsaran, Carmarthenshire (1946)

Trimsaran sits on the B4308 between Llanelli and Kidwelly, in Carmarthenshire. It is a former mining village. In 1945 the Waunffynhonnau drift employed over 300 men. Late in 1946, a case from here reached the Society for Psychical Research.

Its record survives in the SPR archive, now held at Cambridge University Library. The reference is GBR/0012/SPR/Poltergeists/P9. The title gives the place as Glasbury Farm, Trimsaran, Carmarthenshire, Wales. The dates are 21 to 31 December 1946.

Inside, according to the catalogue, are correspondence and newspaper cuttings concerning David Williams. His role is not stated. He may have been the farmer. He may have been a witness, a member of the household, or the reporter.

The label on the folder reads poltergeist activity. That is the cataloguer's phrase. No account in the witnesses' own words has been found. Nothing describing what moved, what was heard, or who was there.

The correspondent named on the file is Donald West. In 1946 he was appointed full-time researcher for the SPR, with accommodation provided in the society's headquarters in Tavistock Square, London. He later became a professor of clinical criminology at Cambridge.

West was known for favouring psychological explanations of spontaneous cases. Whether he visited Trimsaran is not recorded. His article "Recent Cases of Hauntings", published in the Journal of the SPR in 1947 and 1948, covers South Kensington, Luton and Yorkshire. Not Wales. As far as anyone has found, the Trimsaran case was never written up.

There is a further puzzle. No farm called Glasbury has been traced in or near Trimsaran, Kidwelly or Llanelli. The historic place names database of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales does list a Glasbury Farm, with its fold and buildings, a Long Meadow and a garden. It lies in Glasbury parish, Radnorshire, recorded in 1841. About 50 miles to the north east.

Perhaps it was a small Trimsaran farm that never made it online. Perhaps a Welsh name was anglicised or misheard in the cuttings. Perhaps it was a slip in the catalogue. Only the file itself can say.

No photographs. No film. No hoax claim on record, and no official verdict. The only physical evidence is paper. Letters and cuttings in the Manuscripts Reading Room at Cambridge, open to holders of a reader's card, though the SPR notes that some items are restricted for confidentiality reasons.

The cuttings point somewhere. Welsh newspapers from Christmas 1946 may still hold the story as it was first told. Until they are found, Glasbury Farm remains a name on a folder, a Welsh winter, a man called David Williams, and one word on the label.